Sleeping Beauties 4: Quality of Sleep & The Northumberlandia

Welcome to Day 4 of Sleeping Beauties here on DDoA! Today I bring you part 4 of our 5-part feature on the myths and truths about sleep. We also continue our feature on sleeping beauty art with “The Northumberlandia”, the world’s largest human landform.

Sleep Myth No.7 Health problems such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and depression are unrelated to the amount and quality of a person’s sleep.

Sleep Truth No.7Studies have found a relationship between the quantity and quality of one’s sleep and many health problems. For example, insufficient sleep affects growth hormone secretion that is linked to obesity; as the amount of hormone secretion decreases, the chance for weight gain increases. Blood pressure usually falls during the sleep cycle, however, interrupted sleep can adversely affect this normal decline, leading to hypertension and cardiovascular problems. Research has also shown that insufficient sleep impairs the body’s ability to use insulin, which can lead to the onset of diabetes. More and more scientific studies are showing correlations between poor and insufficient sleep and disease.

Sleep Myth No. 8 The older you get, the fewer hours of sleep you need.

Sleep Truth No.8 Sleep experts recommend a range of seven to nine hours of sleep for the average adult. While sleep patterns change as we age, the amount of sleep we need generally does not. Older people may wake more frequently through the night and may actually get less nighttime sleep, but their sleep need is no less than younger adults. Because they may sleep less during the night, older people tend to sleep more during the day. Naps planned as part of a regular daily routine can be useful in promoting wakefulness after the person awakens.

“Northumberlandia is a unique piece of public art set in a 46 acre community park with free public access and 4 miles of footpaths on and around the landform.

The centrepiece of the park is Northumberlandia, a stunning human landform sculpture of a reclining lady. Made of 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil, she is 100 feet high and a quarter of a mile long.

…Her impressive vital statistics -1,300ft long, 830ft wide, and 112ft high at her tallest point – can be seen clearly by commuters on the Edinburgh train, and those travelling along the A1 can also look at her ample attributes…” Read more on the Daily Mail

More Info about The Northumberlandia Project

Designed by American landscape architect Charles Jencks,the sculpture was built on the Blagdon Estate, owned by Matt Ridley, a journalist, businessman and author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature.

The £2.5 million cost was borne by the Blagdon Estate and the Banks Group, who carried out the construction work. The construction is part of the development of an adjacent open-cast coal mine at Shotton. For this project, it was decided to use part of the excavated material to make a land sculpture rather than return it all to the surface mine, as is normally done at the end of such operations…Read more on Wikipedia